Fear
by thecoldforest
Summary: Willing to take on almost any job given to her, Kei has developed the reputation among the Rhymers, Ribsters, and the general populace of the Old Residential District as the local "Jack of all trades". There is one job, however, that she absolutely cannot refuse, and the outcome of it could very well tear her, and her sanity, apart. (Slight OCxSei/AobaxAll )


**Author's NOte~**

**Please read: This chapter isn't really all that violent, nor is it smutty in anyway. However, if mentions of bodily "Grape Juice" bothers anyone, I suggest you click away now and wait for the next chap. I didn't even go that much into detail, but...yeah. Should be fine though, right? I mean, this is DMMd. If you could handle Noiz's bad end without being disturbed, then I'm pretty sure you're mature enough to handle this.**

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**Prologue-**

She heard a scream just as she reached the end of the beach, where sand met water, and was quickly pulled back to consciousness as if something had tied itself around her waist.

Rubbing her eyes sleepily, six-year-old Yamane Asuka slowly sat up in her bed, the dark room lightened by a pink princess nightlight and yawned. Across the room, hanging on her wall, was a butterfly clock that glowed in the dark. The big hand was in between the one and the two, and the small one just before the eight.

_It's not time to wake up yet..._

Yawning again, the child kicked her blanket off her legs and crawled over to the end. The floor was cold when her bare feet made contact, and a slight chill ran up her spine. Rubbing her eyes again, she pattered across her room to the bedroom door, which remained cracked open throughout the night. She had nightmares quite often, and usually woke up crying. Her mother, who slept in the room across from her, kept her door all the way open so she could hear and come when it happened. Bright light slipped through the crack in Asuka's door. The hallway light was on.

Pulling her door open, she stuck her head out. "Mommy?" Asuka called out quietly. Her mother's bedroom light was on as well, and the door wide open. SHe could see the bed across the way, slightly to the left, its blanket barely hanging on the edge and mostly piled on the floor along the side. There was a big stain on the pale blue sheets and on part of the blanket that still hung on the bed that resembled spilt grape juice, the really thick stuff that her grandma made by hand. The girl frowned. Her mother hated that grape juice, saying it was too bitter. "Mommy?" She called out again, louder than before, opening the door wider and took a step into the hall. "Mommy, are you there?"

When she got no response, Asuka took another step forward until she was fully in the hall then took another. She paused when she was just outside her mother's doorway. It was quiet, except for her own breathing and hear heart beat. "Mommy...?"

"Go back to sleep." Stiffening at the voice that came from behind her, Asuka quickly turned around. Leaning against the wall was a girl, tall, with her white hair cut short like a boy's, with her arms crossed. Her bright blue eyes were lined heavily with black makeup, and her clothes were ripped in various places. Though the material was dark, they did not hide the even darker stains that bloomed up randomly all over.

Asuka narrowed her eyes, puffing up slightly. Who did she think she was, telling her what to do? "No." She said defiantly.

The girl raised her thin eyebrows, but did not look surprised. Instead, she looked slightly amused. "It's way past your bedtime, isn't it, little girl?" She asked, looking down at the little girl. Asuka's mouth tightened into a displeased line. The white haired girl was right, but she shook her head, anyway.

"Where's my mommy?" She demanded, refusing to answer the girl in anyway.

The girl's head tilted to the side slightly, and Asuka could see piercings, several of them, shining silver in the light as they dangled from her ears. "Sleeping."

"No, she's not." Asuka said, shaking her head. "Her light is still on, and so is the hallway light. She never leaves the lights on when she goes to bed."

"That so?"

"Yeah."

"I see." Said the girl, nodding slowly. "Still, its late. Go back to sleep. You have school tomorrow, right?"

Asuka frowned. This girl was stupid, she decided. Crossing her arms, she said "Its winter break. There's no school for anyone."

"Ah..." The girl's tone was thoughtful. She was silent for a moment as Asuka stared at her, arms still crossed, before sighing. "Well, can't say I didn't try." she said with a small shrug.

"Eh?" Try what? Before Asuka even realized that the girl had moved, she was pushed backwards roughly, landing hard on her back on the carpeted floor of her mother's room. Blinking, Asuka quickly tried to sit up, only to discover she couldn't. She started to struggle, and her heart rate started to increase. It felt like something heavy had been placed on top of her body, slowly seeping through her veins. The more she tried to move, the more she couldn't move.

She eventually had trouble breathing.

_What..._

From the doorway, the girl spoke. "You're a strange kid, you know that? You're not scared yet." There was a shuffling sound, then the white haired girl was in view again. She crouched down low. "You're fighting against it because you don't like it, not 'cause you're afraid, right? Look over there." The girl's fingers reached out and touched Asuka's cheek. They were cold, very cold. Icy. Then she pushed, and Asuka's head was turned so she could see to the left of her.

The red stain that was on the bed shirts and the blanket on the floor was also on the walls, on her mother's dresser, and on the standing mirror. It was splattered everywhere, like it had been the time when Asuka had gotten into her mother's paint and started flinging it everywhere. But that wasn't exactly what she was staring at.

Poking out of the mess of the blanket on the floor, where the grape juice stain was bigger and even redder, was a hand. Asuka recognized it as her mother's almost instantly by the thick, blue colored ring on the pointer finger. It looked like it was just flung outwards haphazardly. Then the white haired girl reached over and flipped the blanket up, revealing more of her mother that had been hidden. "See, she's sleeping."

If Asuka had any air to spare on a scream, she would have then. Instead, all she could do was stare, unable to move away. In the child's mind, her mother had been a goddess: beautiful, kind, with a soft voice that soothed worries away, but at the same time terribly scary when crossed. She couldn't see that woman, now, though she knew it was her. Red stuff oozed slowly from the many holes in her face, from the empty sockets where her eyes used to be, from her scarlet stained lips, and the gaping wound at her throat.

Her mother was covered in red, the same type of red that reminded her of grandma's grape juice.

"I was doing you a favor, you know. You know she was gonna sell you right? That's why you're not scared."

That was a lie. Asuka was scared. She knew that her mother, covered in grape juice, wasn't really her mother anymore. Her mother was a gone woman, like Aki's mother. She didn't have a mother anymore. She was scared, because now there was no one to scare away the scary things.

Suddenly, she felt something touch her hair. "You have such pretty hair, you know. So dark and soft, nothing like mine." The white haired girl said softly above her. She still hadn't turned her face away from what remained of the face of her mother, and was forced to keep staring. Asuka heard the girl shift, then felt a warm breath brush by her ear.

"I love you." The white haired girl whispered softly.

Asuka was alone, still unable to move, when the fire started burning everything away.

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**Autor's NOte~**

**Okay, so this is it. I know there's no cannon characters, but please bear with it, because this is really important for later in the story. Besides, you just met your main character.**

**Aoba, at the very least, will be in the next chap. **

**Until next update,**

**tcf**


End file.
